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After Yahoo announced that Max Levchin was appointed to its board, the PayPal co-founder and Silicon Valley all-star took to his blog to explain his reasoning for accepting the position.

According to Levchin, his decision centered on three areas -- personal, business, and sentimental. On the personal side, he said that he has for a long time "respected Marissa [Mayer's] talent and tenacity," adding that her decision to take over Yahoo "was a very ballsy move, and when she asked for my help, I was excited about working with her."

On the business side, Levchin … Read more

In an interview with the BBC, Tony Fadell claims that Scott Forstall "got what he deserved" when Apple decided it was time for Forstall to go.

The end to Forstall's tenure at the Cupertino, Calif., company follows on from tensions in the boardroom and accusations of being uncooperative, which reached a head after the mobile software chief refused to sign a letter apologizing for problems with the Apple Maps feature in iOS 6.

The BBC put the Forstall question to Fadell -- known as the "father of the iPod" -- against the backdrop of "… Read more

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer last night spoke before an invite-only crowd at Fortune's Most Powerful Women event. And although she offered up some details during her interview, she sidestepped any opportunity to fully outline her company's plans.

Not surprisingly, Mayer focused much of her discussion on mobile. The mobile market is growing rapidly, and shareholders are responding favorably to Mayer's claims that the space is integral to Yahoo's future growth. At a recent earnings call, Mayer spent a generous amount of time discussing mobile and why she believes Yahoo is well-positioned to capitalize. She did it … Read more

Panasonic will reportedly layoff more employees in an attempt to turn its business around.

Speaking to Reuters in an interview published today, Panasonic finance boss Hideaki Kawai said that his company will shed 10,000 more jobs by the end of March. During its last fiscal year, Panasonic axed 36,000 jobs. The layoffs are designed to bring the company's many ailing divisions back to health, according to Reuters.

That might not be so easy. According to Reuters, Kawai said that 20 percent of Panasonic's 88 business units are actually losing money. Half of all of its units … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder and CEO of Obvious, wants to change the world that he helped create with platforms like Twitter and Blogger, by making his new platform, Medium, a model for curating quality information.

He said the tech industry's obsession with Web content creation has been about making it easy, and quick, for people to share real-time information. Medium, in contrast, is about creating collections of "better quality" content, Williams explained, going beyond the typical columns of text and sidebars, and working well with touch-based and mobile platforms.

Williams' vision is different from … Read more

As you struggle through your life, you're just happy when your toilet flushes, your shoes don't wear out, and your phone works. You don't imagine for a moment that the companies behind these products aren't merely thinking commercially, but existentially.

You don't imagine that they're not just trying to sell you a product -- they're actually trying to lift your spirits. They're trying to make you forget loneliness, despair, and even death.

Please, I am not playing the fool. I am not even impersonating Dr. Sanjay Gupta. For a copy of a plan belonging to Softbank … Read more

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze is reportedly closer to making his plans to buy out his creation a reality.

Schulze and private equity firms are currently analyzing Best Buy's books to help them determine the right price to acquire the remaining shares in Best Buy, Reuters is reporting today, citing sources. Those same sources say that the deal could hit as much as $11 billion.

However, there is still a lot of work to be done before Schulze and his partners will even entertain making an offer. According to Reuters' sources, Schulze, who started Best Buy in 1966, has … Read more

Nokia may be trying to sell its headquarters.

In an interview with Reuters published today, a spokeswoman for the embattled mobile company said that Nokia is "evaluating different options for non-core parts, such as real estate holdings, and that includes the headquarters."

In a follow-up statement to CNET, Nokia spokesman Brett Young confirmed that Nokia is considering selling real estate, including its headquarters. However, he made clear that it doesn't "have any plans to move our headquarters." Instead, Nokia hopes to lease back the space from the new owner.

Nokia's troubles have been well … Read more

Sharp is eyeing steep workforce cuts to become more agile and adapt to its hard times, a new report claims.

The company is currently considering cutting more than 10,000 jobs, representing approximately 18 percent of its workforce, Bloomberg is reporting today, citing sources. The company is also in talks with Foxconn to sell three manufacturing plants, the news outlet's sources say.

At the end of the second quarter, Sharp owed nearly $16 billion in debt and didn't have enough cash on hand to cover its short-term obligations. The company has previously announced that it would lay off … Read more